Monitoring of Media in Relation to (Anti)Discrimination

 
From June 2008 to December 2009, the Citizen, Democracy and Accountability (the former Citizen and Democracy) carried out a project entitled Multilevel Empowerment of Expert Capacities in Anti-Discrimination Domain. The main objective of the project was to strengthen expert capacities in the field of protection and enforcement of human rights through comprehensive antidiscrimination education activities (both in theory and practice). Humanities students involved in the project participated in antidiscrimination activities carried out by our organisation with respect to the enforcement of the equal treatment principle in practice.

One of the project activities was the Monitoring of the Existing Media Environment in Relation to (Anti)Discrimination. Its aim was to identify the quality of information on (anti)discrimination, communication codes through which the information is conveyed, prejudice and stereotypes it contains, and impacts that the information and a way in which it is conveyed have on individuals, groups and the entire society.

Outputs of this project activity include, among other things, the basic media standards for journalists in the form of ten recommendations on how to correctly inform about discrimination. Another practical output is a CD entitled Media Monitoring on (Anti)Discrimination (both in Slovak).

Another project activity involved the mapping of legal environment which contributes to creating conditions for the protection against discrimination and, at the same time, helps identify legal barriers preventing such protection. The project has brought numerous benefits to the general public, especially in the form of project outputs published at www.diskriminacia.sk.
 

More information:

(Slovak)

• Brief information on the project activity
• Analysis on the current media environment in the discrimination domain, in context of human rights, written by Katarina Ilanovska
• Essay on creation and behaviour of media in relation to (anti)discrimination and human rights, written by Iris Kopcsayova
• Media standards of correct informing about discrimination

The project was supported by the Foundation NOS-OSF, the EEA Financial Mechanism and Norwegian Financial Mechanism as well as the State budget of Slovakia.